


Sleepless

by kla1991



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: AU, AU Week 2014, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:51:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1792780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kla1991/pseuds/kla1991
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena didn’t believe that buildings had a soul, but there was no other way to describe what this place was lacking. The drone of a floor-waxing machine rattled into the rigid rows of shelves and died (somewhere, she imagined, between the wilting produce and the molded plastic bath novelties). No other sound reached her but the beeping of the check-out queue she’d been stuck in for far too long.</p><p>Note: This piece is on hold indefinitely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea from a set of strange AU prompts on tumblr. I'm looking for that post so I can give credit where it's due. For now, I send my thanks to you, oh great strange AU muse.

            Helena didn’t believe that buildings had a soul, but there was no other way to describe what this place was lacking. The drone of a floor-waxing machine rattled into the rigid rows of shelves and died (somewhere, she imagined, between the wilting produce and the molded plastic bath novelties). No other sound reached her but the beeping of the check-out queue she’d been stuck in for far too long.

            “Would you like cash back?”

            The man two people in front of her pondered the question. Helena wanted to throttle him.

            Him, she decided, and the woman behind her, who had been staring at Helena’s back ever since she joined the queue.

            _Patience,_ she urged herself, and closed her eyes. She nearly fell asleep, and for a moment she marveled at that, before she remembered that it was well past two in the morning. It was so bright here, white tile and steel and the shining newness of untouched merchandise, she’d nearly forgotten that beyond the sliding doors was a world that had been dark for hours. A world that must sleep poorly, having birthed such minotaurs as these stores, which lurked in the twists and turns of highway and devoured people whole at all hours.

            _Beep. Beep beep beep._

Dear god, that noise was grating.

            “We need assistance in aisle thirteen, please,” the clerk said, her words crackling to life in every sterile corner and narrow aisle.

            Helena almost swore aloud, but it wasn’t the girl’s fault; she barely looked sixteen, and she was as limp as the celery the exhausted mother at the till was trying to buy. Forgotten-to-the-last-minute science experiment, Helena guessed. And how old was the child?

            One hand on her locket, she took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. Only one more person in front of her. Swounds, why wasn’t there another till open in this god-forsaken place?

            A manager appeared, out of thin air as far as Helena could tell, and started tapping on the girl’s computer screen.

            _Beep beep beep beep._

He started muttering to the woman about the celery, and Helena was truly going to kill someone.

            “What?” she finally hissed at the woman behind her, because staring was rude, and Helena had to get it out of her system somehow.

            The woman jolted. Helena rolled her eyes and turned away. The manager and the clerk were opening up the guts of the till. Brilliant.

            “I’m sorry,” the woman behind her said, “but I’m almost obligated to ask: Did you murder someone?”

            “Why on earth would you…” Helena started, but then she remembered what was in her basket: a saw, black plastic bags, duct tape, and bleach. She winced up at the woman, explaining, “I have a leak in my attic. Wanted to fix it, but ironically, it leaked on my handsaw. Poor thing’s rusted to pieces.”

            The woman nodded.

            “Good story. But why fix a roof at two in the morning?”

            Helena inspected the woman’s basket and replied, “I imagine for much the same reason that one makes a two AM ice cream run. Couldn’t sleep.”

            The till was put back together again, and Helena absently swiped her debit card while she watched the woman sigh.

            “Yeah. I usually go to the diner down the street, Leena’s? But it’s closed tonight. I think her friend’s getting married. Anyway, this place is depressing, but Ben and Jerry are men you can count on.”

            Helena laughed, and the supermarket swallowed the sound, but the florescent light illuminated the woman’s smile. She paid the girl at the till, then held out her hand to shake.

            “Detective Myka Bering. Nice to not arrest you.”

            “Helena Wells. I teach astrophysics at the college.”

            They walked out the sliding glass doors together, and Helena followed naturally to Detective Bering’s car, chatting as if this weren’t the strangest meeting at the oddest hour. The detective didn’t seem to mind.

            A few days later, when the roof was repaired, and the damp patches of the ceiling sprayed with bleach to stop them molding, Helena tossed and turned and gave up on sleep.

            Instead, she wandered down to Leena’s diner and settled in with a cup of tea. She wasn’t quite waiting (the odds were so slim), but she didn’t mind when she felt someone staring at her.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who read the first chapter as a one-shot, thanks for coming back!
> 
> For those who are new here, hi! This piece was originally a one-shot, but it opened out into some things I wanted to explore. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy.

            “Detective Bering, right?” Helena called to the woman standing just inside the door of the diner. The woman who, in response, jumped and looked around her, startled and embarrassed to have been caught staring. At least, that was what Helena assumed.

            But she rubbed her neck and made her way toward Helena’s booth, and even if she didn’t sit down, Helena was certain she could convince the detective to stay.

            “Just Myka is fine. How’s it going, Helena?”

            “I would bemoan my lack of sleep,” Helena said, “if it didn’t come with such fortunate company.”

            Myka scoffed, but she slid into the booth. Victory should always come so easily. Helena’s drowsy mind began assembling pleasant conversation starters, but Myka pulled the faintly greasy menu out of its holder and started skimming it, flipping it back and forth indecisively. Leena, the lovely woman who ran the establishment, brought over a cup of coffee, asked Helena if she wanted more tea, and confirmed for Myka that anything she wanted, she could have. That didn’t seem to help her make a decision. Helena decided to start there.

            “I wasn’t certain I was even hungry when I first came in. Just wanted somewhere to be, really. Of course, sitting here, smelling it all… What would you recommend?”

            Myka shrugged and said, “Depends what you’re hungry for.”

            Helena leaned over the menu, into Myka’s space, and Myka turned the menu around for her. When Helena settled on toast and eggs, Myka pointed her to the breakfast platter: two eggs, two links of maple sausage, fruit, and your choice of breakfast breads. It was what Helena ordered, despite being uncertain whether or not she could eat it all. Myka ordered stuffed French toast with baked apples. She looked sheepish when Leena left them, insisting that she never ate sugar, not normally, and Helena waved her embarrassment away.

            “Everything in moderation, darling,” she decreed, “including moderation.”

            Myka laughed at that. She drank deeply from her coffee mug, then leaned back in toward Helena, who hadn’t moved all that far away from her. It was like they were conspiring together.

            “So are you following me?” Myka whispered.

            “Are you going to call the police?” Helena teased.

            When Myka frowned, Helena thought she could slap herself. Of course showing up here at this hour, toying so freely with the girl, would ring alarm bells. Helena backpedaled furiously.

            “I’m not following you. It was only so pleasant to have met you, and I imagined a friend of yours and her establishment would be pleasant as well. One gets lonely in the middle of the night, which I imagine you understand, given that I’ve met you twice so late. Not that I meant to find you here, or that you’re obliged to lend me your company. I only—”

            “Are you gonna breathe at any point during this?” Myka asked.

            Helena blinked at her.

            “I don’t have a problem with you being here. I just…” and here Myka paused, and Helena could almost see her flipping pages of a mental dictionary, skimming it like the menu, searching out the words she craved. She settled on, “I’m not really into police jokes. You don’t have to freak out.”

            They sat for a while, Myka toying with a curl of her hair, Helena wrapping her hands around her tea mug and listening to the ticking of the grease-splattered clock. But aside from the clock and the menu, Helena thought, Leena’s diner was admirably clean. The walls were neatly papered, the tables made of real wood, and the saltshakers all decorative collectibles, the sort one would have in one’s home. Helena sat, admiring the saltshakers and the artwork on the walls as long as her manners would hold out.

            “I suppose it’s in poor taste,” she said, when she was done trying to behave, “to ask what’s kept you awake tonight?”

            “Would you answer that question?”

            They looked at each other, then, and Helena tried to decide what counted as winning in this odd little staring contest they were having. She tried to imagine saying _Christina_ out loud. What sort of need, or desperation or faith, would make her open the locket around her neck? Helena shook her head, even though she suspected it counted as a loss to do so.

            “Not yet.”

            Leena appeared, steaming plates a blessed interruption. She glanced at each of them, then asked if they’d like more to drink in a way that implied it was a carefully chosen phrase. It also gave her, Helena noticed when Leena poured coffee and hot water into their respective mugs, another chance to look at them both, to intervene if need be.

            Myka devoured half of her French toast while Helena spread her jam and carefully cut up her sausage. And then Myka was beaming again.

            “How’d the roof repair go?”

            Helena groaned, and it was easy then, to talk and eat together. When they walked out together, the stars were still shining but the birds in Leena’s potted fig trees were starting to mumble in their sleep. Myka’s car was nestled close to the curb, and they both walked to it, again, as naturally as could be.

            “Goodnight, Detective Bering,” Helena said.

            Myka tensed, the way she had twice before, and she leaned against her open car door. Helena felt like the automatic light from Myka’s car was a spotlight, showing nothing of Myka but the sharp lines of her shoulders, but illuminating everything that Helena was, had ever been. She toyed with her locket, waiting for something to happen.

            “If I tell you something,” Myka said, and she sounded so tired, “do we have to talk about it?”

            “No.”

            “I’m not a detective. Not anymore.”

            And Myka climbed into her car and drove away, leaving Helena by herself in the dark.

           


	3. Chapter 3

            Myka was huddled in one corner of Pete’s enormous leather couch, half-way toward dozing, when Pete banged out of his bedroom and spotted her.

            “How’s it shaking, Mykes?” he boomed.

            It took her a moment to re-orient herself, so sudden was the noise. She’d lived in this apartment with Pete for almost a year now, and she knew he was loud in the morning. Knowing wasn’t the same as being used to, though. And on mornings when she hadn’t slept…

            “Myka?”

            Pete waved his hand in her face, and she swatted it away.

            “Why do you insist on walking around in a towel like that?”

            “I’m on my way to the shower, man,” Pete whined. “And it’s not like it’s a hardship, looking at these sweet abs.”

            He flexed. Myka punched him.

            “Do you want me to drop the towel, too?” Pete asked her, and he laughed when Myka went wide-eyed.

            Pete raised one eyebrow, then the other, and it was obvious this conversation wasn’t going to end. At least she could make it pleasant for herself.

            “I saw that woman again, the one from the grocery store.”

            “You went to the grocery store again?” Pete asked. “What for?”

            “No, she was at Leena’s. I told her about it when we met,” Myka explained.

            Pete made what Myka could only describe as a skeptical dog noise, and Myka waved it away.

            “She’s not creepy, Pete. She’s sweet.”

            “Okay, first of all, that rhymed. Second of all, you went to Leena’s and you didn’t bring me anything?” Pete pouted.

            Myka rolled her eyes and told him to go get his own breakfast, even though she knew he wouldn’t. Pete loved Leena’s food, but the trouble was, he’d loved Leena for a while, too. He didn’t go to the diner anymore.

            “Whatever,” he grumbled, and he left her alone to shower.

            And that was just typical, of both of them, wasn’t it? Myka not sleeping and picking fights with her roommate, and Pete… being Pete. Always thinking about food and saying random crap and not paying attention to what she was _actually telling him,_ which was that she’d spoken more than three words to someone who wasn’t him or Leena or Pete’s girlfriend, Kelly. It was a big deal. She’d been excited, had actually wanted to share like Pete was always bugging her about (because they were best friends, according to him), and he’d made fun of her for word choice and… it was just so damn typical.

            She was still stewing about it when Pete finished the “half-hour power shower.” He stood in front of her, dripping on the carpet and swinging his soap on a rope, and said, “Third of all, why?”

            “Why am I an asshole?” Myka asked, because she felt guilty, and staying mad at Pete was way harder than staying mad at herself. “I’m just tired.”

            “No, why did you talk to grocery store lady? You don’t talk to anybody.”

            For a minute, Myka just stared at him. After almost a year, she should be used to this, Pete suddenly being exactly what she needed him to be in the moment she doubted him most. She still expected him to be useless. Forget his immaturity, forget her father and her old boss and all the other men who’d let her down. Pete wasn’t them.

            “Why are you my friend?” she asked him.

            Pete laughed and flopped onto the couch beside her, declaring, “Because, my dear Miss Bering, you quit the police department, your house got foreclosed on, and I was the only person in thousand-mile radius willing to have anything to do with you.”

            It was a fair jab, after what she’d said about Leena. He also didn’t let her dwell on it. After a moment he squeezed her, hitched up his towel, and said, “Now tell me about this girl!”

 

 

            “She’s wonderful,” Helena said, “And you’ve already let me talk about her for an extra ten minutes.”

            Abigail Cho groaned, and as if on cue, Claudia banged on the door, calling, “HG, stop stepping on my time!”

            “I wouldn’t have to use your time if HG would stop waiting til the last minute to say all the interesting stuff,” Abigail said when she’d opened the door.

            Claudia roared into the office and bounced on the couch, disrupting Helena’s languid pose. Her effusiveness filled the tiny therapists’ office to the brim, and sometimes Helena wondered how Abigail could stand the contrast between herself and her other patient.

            “Interesting stuff! What interesting stuff? Come on, you’re ten minutes late, you have to tell me interesting stuff!”

            Helena rolled her eyes and stood, arguing, “I thought you wanted to get on with your own appointment.”

            “H Geeeeee!”

            “You are going to settle down and focus on you,” Abigail ordered, and when Claudia had stopped all but her leg from bouncing, she shook a finger at Helena, saying, “And you: just tell me these things, okay?”

            Helena nodded, as admonished as she could be while trying not to smile, and started to leave. Abigail was settled into her armchair, picking up her coffee mug, when Helena turned back.

            “Oh, I haven’t told you her name!”

            Claudia started shouting about “her” and demanding that HG explain herself, but Abigail held up a hand for silence and waited.

            “It’s Myka,” Helena said. “Myka Bering.”

            Abigail took a deep breath and told her, “Okay then. We are _definitely_ going to talk about that.”

            Helena left the office with a distinct sense that she was missing something.


	4. Chapter 4

            “Quiet night?” Helena asked when Leena looked up from her bread dough to smile at her.

            Leena hummed, “They tend to be.”

            Helena perched neatly on a barstool, watching Leena knead dough, pressing with the heels of her hands and pulling back with her fingers, singing to herself. Just the thought of the bagels Leena started to form made Helena’s mouth water.

            She could have ordered, if she’d liked, but she couldn’t bear to disturb Leena. Instead, she tapped on the countertop and studied the way each light fixture was arranged to create such perfect warmth. The diner felt like a haven from wind and cold, from bed sheets that wouldn’t warm up enough to sleep in and rooms with too much space and air. It must have been purposeful, this tranquil hominess. But what was it for? And why in god’s name was Leena, the owner, here at the same hour as night-roamers like Helena?

            “It’s odd you’re here so late,” she finally said. “Most bakers rise early, bake, serve, and are well a-bed this time of night.”

            “I like the people who come in at this hour.”

            When Helena didn’t reply, Leena looked over her shoulder. Helena cocked her head, hoping for more, and was rewarded.

            “I paint best at dawn,” Leena explained, “and also when I’ve had things to think about first.”

            “Things to think about. Such as?”

            “Such as why Myka talks to you.”

            Helena frowned. “Is she not usually friendly, or should I feel insulted?”

            Leena set a mug of hot water and a tea bag on the counter and shrugged.

            “You know you’re the second person this week who’s seemed worried about my bonding with Myka Bering?” Helena pressed. “Is she alright?”

            It seemed to sit well with Leena that Helena leaned across the counter and looked her in the eye. Her voice, when she answered, was gentle, less matter-of-fact than it had been before.

            “She’ll be fine.”

            The change of tense was not lost on Helena.

 

 

            When Myka saw her again, she was too effusive to sit long in the diner. Myka had come mostly to be with people (with Helena) anyway, so she didn’t mind when Helena suggested a stroll. The sky was different with Helena than it ever had been before; she asked if Myka knew the constellations, and when Myka said she didn’t, they didn’t discuss them anymore. Instead, Helena pressed close to Myka’s side and pointed, murmuring about galaxies tucked between this star and that, how heat and atmosphere created the redness of Bellatrix, and on and on. Myka tucked her arm into the crook of Helena’s and tried to remember every word.

            “Do you understand what I’m prattling on about?” Helena asked eventually.

            “I’ll ace the quiz, I promise.”

            Helena laughed, a different sound than the gentle chuckle Myka had heard before. It was delightful.

            And then she asked Myka to tell her something about herself, which was less than delightful, to say the least.

            After Myka had floundered for about a block, Helena gave her a specific question: How did you meet Leena? Not that it was any simpler, but at least it was easy. Myka took a breath, resisted the urge to squeeze Helena’s arm, and confessed.

            “The police station is down on Frost Lane, about fifteen miles from here. Most cops live on that side of town, so nobody comes here. They go to Duncan’s, usually; his kids are on the force, and I think his brother was, too, in Lancaster County. Leena’s was a place we could go to without worrying about seeing people we knew.”

            “We?” Helena asked.

            Myka nodded. “Sam and me. Before…”

            But she wasn’t ready to talk about before. She was starting to make excuses when Helena looked up to the sky again, sighing.

            “Before you forgot how to sleep?”

            When Myka nodded, Helena looked at her again. She remembered what before was like, too, she said. And she took a hand off Myka’s arm to clutch at her locket.

            The next thing she said was about Leena, about painting. She got excited again, ran Myka ragged, and then tucked her safely in her car. Myka crawled into Pete’s house, into her bed, and slept.

           

 

            “She has a lot of problems,” Abigail told Helena during their session. “and she’s more or less sealed herself away from everyone. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but…”

            Helena rolled her eyes. Abigail was insistent.

            “I just don’t want you to start taking in strays. Claudia was good for you, and you’ve been good for her, too. But if you make a habit of it, Helena, that’s not moving on; it’s chasing a ghost.”

            Helena agreed. Helena promised she’d be careful.

            But Helena hadn’t slept this well since before.


	5. Chapter 5

5A

          It was a bad day the second Myka woke up, because it was Angela Yepes’ birthday. Pete had already taken his half-hour power shower, leaving no hot water for her, and he’d eaten half of her bagel, so there was little hope of things looking up, either.

            She drove to work, at the Autumn Sunrise nursing home, and found out that Mrs. Dajani, the octogenarian in room twenty-five who kept corn bread muffins hidden in her pocket book, had fallen. The ambulance was there, and the front door was propped open because so many people were coming and going, and Myka needed to find Ms. Sarah right away and make sure she hadn’t wandered off.

            “Close this door and keep it closed!” Myka snapped at the first person she saw.

            “It’s a nursing home,” the girl replied. She wore a crooked stick-on nametag, and it was obvious she was a middle school volunteer. “Why do they need security guards anyway? Creepers don’t sneak in to attack old people.”

            Myka shook off the memory of a particularly brutal investigation (an elderly couple, just back from their fiftieth anniversary celebration), and barked at the kid, ”I’m worried about who goes out, not who comes in. These people are here for a reason, okay? They need to be looked after.”

            Ms. Sarah turned the corner right then, just in time to get rescued from the speeding gurney bearing Mrs. Dajani.

            “Oh, my hero!” Ms. Sarah crooned in Myka’s arms. “What’s your name, handsome?”

 

            And then, on the way home, Myka got pulled over. The sight of flashing blue in her rear-view mirror made her blood boil, but she set her jaw and pressed her hands against the wheel, gripping tight while the officer smirked at her and demanded ID.

            “Do you know why I pulled you over, Ms. Bering?” he asked.

            Myka remembered him. Didn’t remember his name, but she remembered _him_.

            “No, sir,” she answered, because she wasn’t speeding or forgetting her turn signal or cutting anyone off, or anything. She knew exactly why he pulled her over.

            Myka focused on how this all started, how worth it everything was. Because it was Angela Yepes’s birthday today. Angela Yepes who found a body in the woods, and that body was Mrs. Heather Mayfield, and Myka had endured so much worse than this for them.

            Officer Whoever-the-Fuck slammed his fist into the hood of Myka’s car and laughed when she flinched.

            “Your hood was popped open,” he claimed. “If it don’t stay shut, we might have to impound the vehicle. Have a nice day!”

            As Myka rolled up her window, she heard him add, “Bitch.”

 

            “Hey, Myka! Old buddy, old pal!” Pete gushed when she walked in the door, and Myka just couldn’t do this right now, but he bounced up to her, asking, “Guess who got paid today?”

            Myka stared blankly, and Pete answered himself.

            “Pete Lattimer, private eye! By the lovely Lawson family.”

            “Does that mean you’re going to replace the bagels you stole from me?” Myka asked, pushing past him toward the kitchen.

            Pete held out a check that Myka didn’t bother to look at, asking, “How many bagels will seven hundred dollars buy?”

            Myka stopped midway through digging her pint of ice cream out of its hiding place in the freezer.

            “They only paid you seven hundred dollars?”

            “Noooo,” Pete said. “They paid me north of two thousand dollars. Seven hundred is your cut. I figured that was fair since I did all the legwork.”

            He held the check out again, and Myka actually looked. It was in his handwriting, so she couldn’t read it, but the seven and the zeroes were pretty clear.

            “Pete, I don’t work for you,” Myka told him.

            “The offer is work _with_ me, first of all. _With_ me. Second, of all, so what? Call it a consulting fee. You know I couldn’t have done this one without you.”

            Myka sighed, snatched the check, and rammed it into the pocket of her jeans. Pete watched her serve herself ice cream and slump onto the couch, his brow scrunched up like he was thinking, which made Myka suspect he wasn’t. Whatever came out of his mouth next would be ridiculous, so she turned on the TV to discourage him.

            “Maybe I’m wrong,” Pete said anyway, “but are we not a pretty awesome team?”

            Myka turned up the volume on the TV, keeping the remote close so he couldn’t snatch it from her. Pete turned off the surge protector the TV was plugged into.

            “I don’t need a job, Pete,” Myka said. “I have one.”

            “Security officer at a nursing home is not a job, Mykes. Not one that uses all that sexy raw talent you got!”

            “I care about those people, okay?” Myka protested.

            “You care about everyone, that’s not the point. A lot of people could do what you do there. No one else could do what you did on that Lawson case with me.”

            Myka rolled her eyes and started to get up from the couch. Pete sat in front of her on the coffee table, pushed her back down, and groaned.

            “Come on, Mykes! I know I’m the beauty and brilliance of this operation, but I’m man enough to admit you got some serious moves. The two of us would be so awesome! It’d be like…”

            He devolved into enthusiastic sound effects for a moment, and Myka just stared.

            “Look, what I’m saying is, I need a partner, and there’s no one out there that I’d rather have than you. I’ve learned so much from you, and…”

            “And yet you still haven’t learned what it means when someone says ‘no,’ Pete!”

            Myka stood because her eyes were stinging, and her throat was so tight she couldn’t swallow. Pete tried to grab her, but she barreled past him to the front door.

            “Where are you going?”

            “For a walk,” Myka snapped at him, and she slammed the door on the way out.

 

            Myka’s evening walk spiraled out into a twilight hike, and she thought about Angela Yepes.

            She had been eleven years old when she found a body in the woods, practically in her own backyard. Her parents hadn’t believed her. At school, she’d been sent to the nurse’s office, shaking and sweating, and made to lie down. When no one was looking, Angela had called the police.

            Angela’s back yard, it turned out, was owned by the victim’s husband, Paul Mayfield, a retired cop.

            “Leave the man alone,” Myka’s partner had insisted. “He’s grieving.”

            Paul Mayfield claimed he hadn’t seen his wife in days, that he assumed she was staying with a lover, that she had left him for good. She was a cheater, he explained.

            Myka listed him as her prime suspect.

            “Leave the man alone,” the chief had warned. “There’s never been a bad word said about Mayfield. No reports, no complaints, no nothing. He’s unimpeachable. Back off and do your job.”

            Myka had done her job.

            She had spoken to Mayfield’s renters, to his estranged son, to his neighbors. They had no complaints, but also no clues.

            Her partner had jumped ship three weeks in. Sam had taken his place.

            The neighbors, on Myka’s third visit, finally broke. Once a week, sometimes more, there was unbearable shouting from the Mayfield house. Screaming and curses that they didn’t want their children to hear. Once, they heard glass shattering, like a bottle had been thrown.

            “Why was none of this reported?”

            The neighbors had shrugged, asked her, “Who do you call, the police?”

            “You call me,” Myka told them.

            Sam would confess months later, in the back booth of Leena’s diner, that he had fallen in love with her right then.

            Now, Myka sat in the back booth, eyes closed, and hoped Angela Yepes slept at night.

 

            “Oh good, you’re here!”

            The intrusion was sudden, and oddly enthusiastic. Myka blinked her eyes open to look at Helena, who was beaming and pretty and holding out a hand for Myka to take. It was almost midnight, almost tomorrow, and Myka had a good feeling about that.

            Helena said, “I wanted to show you something.”

 

 

 

5B

            Helena’s afternoon class, Life in the Universe (which involved mathematics and biology and no fiction whatsoever), let out at four thirty. Claudia emerged from the dark back corner, where she’d undoubtedly been doodling UFO designs instead of taking notes again, and followed Helena to the car.

            “Are you going to see the show tonight?” Helena asked as she drove them home.

            Claudia shrugged. “Probably not. Steve is coming over, so we’ll probably just hang at the house. Might stand around in the yard for a bit. You going out somewhere to see it?”

            “Don’t you and Jinks make another hole in my roof, you hear me?” Helena warned, ignoring the question.

            “Yes mother,” Claudia grumbled, clearly before she could think better of it.

            Helena petted her hair and sighed, ignoring Claudia’s worried glances.

            _It’s fine_ , she told herself, hand resolutely not clutching at her locket. _Everything is fine._

 

            Once she’d told Claudia to do her homework, Helena pulled her hair down, shuffled out of her teaching clothes, and dove into the embrace of a shower. She washed her hair, conditioned it, scrubbed elegantly scented soap behind her ears, and dealt fiercely with the calluses on her feet. It took a bit longer than usual, to make herself feel properly clean, and she applied lotion doubly on her elbows and hands. Her hair she combed out gently, careful not to pull and make it frizz. And then she stood naked in her room and lost herself in thoughts of what to wear.

            Claudia, when Helena emerged in tight black jeans and crisp shirt and vest instead of her usual evening wear, said nothing. Then again, she was scribbling rather ferociously in a notebook, so she was probably distracted.

            Helena microwaved dinner and kicked herself for dressing up before she ate.

            Steve, of course, noticed immediately when he arrived.

            “You look really nice,” was all he said, but it was enough to make Claudia look up and really study her.

            “Are you wearing makeup?” Claudia asked. “Because you weren’t wearing makeup in class, and it’s like eight o’clock now. Why would you put on makeup?”

            “Mind your business,” Helena scolded. “And finish your homework before I send your friend away.”

            “You’re not _actually_ my mother, HG,” Claudia complained.

            Helena huffed and turned to Steve.

            “You’ve been given firm instructions not to blow anything up while I’m gone.”

            Steve nodded, started to say, “Yes, ma’am,” but Claudia shouted over him, “You are going out! Do you have a date to the show?”

            Helena rolled her eyes, and Claudia hopped into a crouch in the chair, leering like a gleeful little gargoyle.

            “Is it this mysterious and lovely Myka Bering? Because I so want to know more about that.”

            “Myka Bering,” Steve said. “Hey, I know about her!”

            It struck Helena suddenly that Steve probably would know about her. Because Steve was not as young as he looked, and he was a demolitions expert and of course he would work with the police. She was suddenly both desperate and unprepared to know what he knew, because it had been months now, and Myka had told her so very little yet.

            “Yeah, a few years back, she tried to prosecute a cop who killed his wife.”

            “Wait, tried to? As in didn’t succeed?” Claudia asked.

            Helena felt a rush of pride, but it faltered when Steve frowned.

            “You can’t prosecute cops, Claud. It just doesn’t happen. And when you try, you end up like Myka Bering.” Steve shook his head and started, “I mean, they railroaded her when…”

            “That’s quite enough,” Helena announced, because this was too personal, and too much at once. She was starting to see the picture of Myka Bering, stripped of her title and left alone with only Leena and her homey diner for company. How desolate, how frustrating. And now she was even more determined to make a night of this, to make Myka feel like she was not alone.

            Because she had clearly lost so much, and Helena felt that so keenly.

            Claudia, however, protested.

            “HG, if you’re going out with this chick, you need to know something about her.”

            “It’s private information!” Helena retorted.

            “It’s public data, actually,” Steve said, but Helena ignored him, instead settling on the arm of Claudia’s chair and clucking over her homework until Claudia kicked her away and told her to just go already.

            “Also public data is the fact that you’re a loser,” Claudia quipped. “Myka Bering won’t see all your make-up in the dark.”

            Helena rolled her eyes, insisting that this particular shade did well in red lighting. Steve and Claudia both mocked her until she headed for the door.

            “No explosions,” she warned before she left.

 

            Myka blinked up at her, glasses askew, when Helena greeted the woman at Leena’s, and Helena worried she may have woken her. When, following Helena’s proposal that they go see something, Myka didn’t move, Helena slid into the booth across from her.

            “Are you alright?” she asked.

            “Where’ve you been?” Myka mumbled, and Helena was certain then that she’d woken her.

            “I’ve been sleeping lately,” Helena explained, “as I’d hoped you’d been. We may ought to make other arrangements for seeing each other.”

            Myka squinted and asked, “Like what?”

            “Come see the show with me,” Helena blurted, contrary to her best-laid plans. “I have the perfect place to watch from, it’s private and dark, and…”

            She stopped when Myka held up a hand.

            “Private and dark and what show are you talking about?”

            “The Perseids!” Helena exclaimed.

            No response. Helena laughed.

            “You really pay no attention to space, do you? The Perseid meteor shower is tonight, and I have access to the college’s observatory. They had a public viewing last night, but the visibility’s better now, and no one’s there.”

            Myka still hadn’t reacted, and Helena turned her gaze to her hands, twisting in her lap.

            “I had hoped you’d be interested, but you’re tired and…”

            “And interested.”

            When Helena looked up, Myka was a vision, grinning drowsily while she adjusted her glasses.

            “I had a really long day, so I’m a little out of it,” Myka explained. “But considering how happy I am just to see you right now…”

            She trailed off, fiddled with her spoon on the tabletop, and Helena had almost given up on her continuing to speak, had started to wonder if she was asleep again, when Myka finally finished her thought.

            “I think you’re right. Maybe we should go somewhere.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
